2008.10.24: October 24, 2008: Headlines: Figures: COS - Congo Kinshasa: Global Warming: Environment: First Amendment: Police: Washington Post: Md. State Police Spied on Climate Change Activist Mike Tidwell
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2008.10.24: October 24, 2008: Headlines: Figures: COS - Congo Kinshasa: Global Warming: Environment: First Amendment: Police: Washington Post: Md. State Police Spied on Climate Change Activist Mike Tidwell
Md. State Police Spied on Climate Change Activist Mike Tidwell
Three members of a Maryland environmental group that fights climate change and promotes the use of alternative energy sources were wrongly classified as terrorists by the state police. Mike Tidwell, founder and director of the Chespeake Climate Action Network, and former deputy director Josh Tulkin today joined other environmental leaders and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland in calling on the police to explain why the group was targeted. "We're professional, skilled, mainstream people," Tidwell said at a press conference at the Silver Spring Metro station. "We are at the center of public conversation on climate change in this state." Author Mike Tidwell, founder of the Chesapeake Climate Action Committee, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa.
Md. State Police Spied on Climate Change Activist Mike Tidwell
Md. State Police Spied on Climate Change Activists
Lisa Rein
Three members of a Maryland environmental group that fights climate change and promotes the use of alternative energy sources were wrongly classified as terrorists by the state police.
Mike Tidwell, founder and director of the Chespeake Climate Action Network, and former deputy director Josh Tulkin today joined other environmental leaders and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland in calling on the police to explain why the group was targeted.
"We're professional, skilled, mainstream people," Tidwell said at a press conference at the Silver Spring Metro station. "We are at the center of public conversation on climate change in this state."
Tidwell, Tulkin and a third staff member who does not want to be publicly identified were invited by the police to review their files before the information is purged from state and federal databases. Police have acknowledged that at least 53 individual and an undetermined number of advocacy groups were wrongly entered in state and federal criminal intelligence databases in 2005 and 2006.
Tidwell said he believes two peaceful protests at coal-fired power plants in 2004 and 2006 caught the attention of police, who spied on death penalty opponents and war protesters over 14 months when Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. (R) was governor.
It's unclear how Tidwell and other activists -- from abortion opponents to a group that opposes military recruitment in high schools -- came to be entered in the databases.
So far the activists have chosen not to review their files unless they can get hard copies and bring a lawyer, two conditions the state police have refused to meet.
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Headlines: October, 2008; RPCV Mike Tidwell (Congo Kinshasa); Figures; Peace Corps Congo Kinshasa; Directory of Congo Kinshasa RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Congo Kinshasa RPCVs; Global Warming; Environment; First Amendment; Police; Maryland
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Story Source: Washington Post
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Congo Kinshasa; Global Warming; Environment; First Amendment; Police
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